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  While most of Wes’s classmates were funneling beer and keg-standing till they got their graduation sheepskins—ripping and rolling lambskins each Saturday night, getting lucky, Wes spent most of his time alone. He had elected to live off campus, away from the pricier meal plan and in an apartment by himself in a less-than-desirable neighborhood on Tompkins Square Park. He could barely afford the tiny studio apartment on the junkie-packed Avenue B, where heroin needles were more common than diagonal-slung book bags. But he had befriended his blind super, Max, not knowing he was also the owner of the building. Max was a fifty-three-year-old African American from the neighborhood who, as a child, also loved to build towers and structures with his blocks before he lost his sight. And when the older man took a liking to the earnest student and kind, responsible tenant, Wes found his lease renewed with a yearly increase of 0.00 percent.

  It was an unlikely friendship, marked by weekly walks around the city during which Wes would describe the architecture to his sightless friend, who relished the eloquent, detailed descriptions of cantilevered design and shiny new materials. Wes was breathless and excited to share his passion with a like-minded person.

  “Okay, Max, we’re rounding the corner onto Park Avenue,” Wes would say. “I’m looking at a row of buildings, each set back so that people can walk the expanded pavement. There are fountains to the right.”

  “I can hear ’em,” Max said.

  “Across the street is the Lever House,” Wes explained, drinking in the gleaming façade. “It’s a tall, steel and glass prism and has really clean and simple geometries. It’s sleek.”

  “What are the fountains under?” asked Max.

  “They’re part of Mies van der Rohe’s plaza for the Seagram Building, which is also glass, but more of a warm-toned wall of translucent, coffee brown. There’s a man sitting on a bench with his family eating lunch,” Wes said. “They’re unfolding tinfoilwrapped sandwiches. Maybe the dad had to work on a Sunday and I guess the wife and little kid came to meet him for lunch.”

  Max beamed. He shook his head, knowing no one else but Wes could or would have done that for him.

  During his downtime, Wes loved to discover inspiring places, big and small, from the main reading room at the New York Public Library to the Temple of Dendur at the Met to his favorite hole-in-the-wall diner, where he’d sit and study and draw.

  In the buzzing fluorescent light of the shitty Bowery diner, Wes couldn’t fathom a more beautiful paradise. It was as if the nasty dead-mosquito-covered lightbulbs were pale moonlight, the gnarly heater blowing bacteria-laced air on them were an ocean-front breeze, and the glazed hams in the cold-cut window a lavish buffet fit for kings.

  Likewise, Eden felt so at ease with Wes. It was the days before venti-soy-half-caf-skim-mocha-triple-shot-’cinos, and their light conversation budded into a nice evening of add-water-and-stir instant connection. She found comfort in the warmth of a stranger so sweet that Eden didn’t even care that the next day would bring moving boxes bound for Allison’s apartment.

  After chatting and nursing their bottomless cups of coffee for over an hour, Wes got the courage to reach for a piece of paper from his bag.

  “It’s been really nice to talking to you,” he said, fishing for his pencil. “Could I, um, get your phone number? Maybe we could get another coffee sometime.”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said, shaking her head. “But I don’t have a phone.”

  “Guess what?” said Wes, smiling. “Me neither.”

  “Hmm, I’m kind of . . . in transit, as you could see.” Eden smiled, staring right into his eyes. He was so cute. “But . . . I would love to see you again. How do I find you?”

  “How about here?” he offered with a smile.

  The two agreed to meet again for coffee again, same diner, same time, the next evening. It was probably a waste of time, but Eden felt so drawn to Wes that she needed to see him again.

  When Eden arrived the following night, she groaned when she saw the hordes packing the joint. The line looked ridiculously long, even for takeout, but she was pleasantly surprised to see Wes already awaiting her outside. With two large cups of coffee.

  “It’s so much milder tonight,” he said, relishing the fifty-five-degree air. “I thought we could maybe walk a little.”

  “Perfect! I’m so in the mood for a nice walk.”

  They strolled down the street, passing halfway houses and homeless shelters, a soup kitchen, a rat. But it may as well have been the Champs-Elysées. Their chemistry was instant and heightening with every pace. Wes wanted the night to never end. When Eden randomly suggested they go across the Brooklyn Bridge, Wes was delighted, not because it was one of his favorite paths, but because he knew it meant a return walk back: His time with her would be doubled.

  “I’ve never done this, have you?” Eden asked, relishing the newness of speeding cars underfoot as they stepped over the wooden beams.

  “Sure, all the time,” replied Wes. “It was one of the first places I came when I arrived in New York. I love this bridge.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t ever think to cross it, unless I had to get to the other side, I mean.”

  “Oh no, I just walk across and come back. Just for the view.”

  “The whole journey-and-not-the-destination thing?” Eden smiled.

  “Exactly.” Wes grinned. “You know, when John Roebling died of tetanus, his son Washington took over with the construction of the bridge, which began in 1870. When he got the bends, his wife, Emily, took over and completed the project and she was actually the first person to walk across it. It was really a family affair, a true passion project. I hope if I’m lucky enough to build anything, I can be as into it as they were. Hopefully without the dying part.”

  “How do you know so much?” she asked, feeling a spark ignite inside of her.

  Wes shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t know,” he said sheepishly. “I’m alone a lot. I read a ton. And take lots and lots of long walks.”

  “You know what I think?” Eden asked, stopping him and putting her hand on his shoulder. “I think I want to come along.”

  5

  Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.

  —Bob Dylan

  Eden barely unpacked into Allison’s studio when she began spending every night at Wes’s apartment down the street. Her heart pounded every time she was headed to see him. Wes was almost too good to be true. He was softer, more nurturing to her than other guys had been. He never tried to control her; they never quarreled. He was wise, sweet, and most of all, he respected her.

  Each night he’d study, his blue downward-gazing irises behind his glasses as he sketched and traced blueprints through the night while Eden danced with a glass of wine in the background to her The The vinyls. He gave her that feeling in her stomach, like she felt on the swinging pirate ship ride when she and Allison snuck into a traveling county fair as children: nauseating and thrilling at the same time.

  Could this be the L word they talk, sing, write, and scream about? Eden moved in within four weeks. And as the months blissfully passed, she saw no end in sight. They spent every free moment together. He taught her all about architecture; she took him to outdoor free concerts where they would lie in each other’s arms. They seemed to have their own language, and even had a special nickname for each other, which they hatched after only a few months together.

  One night at their late-night haunt, the diner on the Bowery where they first met, Wes was signaling Eden inside from her cigarette break. Like everyone in New York at the time, she had started smoking, despite years of having called her mom the Chimney.

  “Honey, the burgers are ready,” he said, sweetly tapping on the glass.

  “Thanks, honey,” she said through the window as she threw the butt on the ground and came in.

  An older Greek guy who sat on the stool beside them laughed as he ate his fries.

  “This is very funny, you calling your lo
ver ‘honey,’” he said in his thick Mediterranean accent, swiveling toward the cute couple. “In my country, this word is not used for affection, it is ingredient. This is like in your country calling your lover ‘maple syrup.’”

  Wes and Eden cackled out loud, totally getting how random calling a beloved “honey” might sound to a foreigner. Wes moved Eden’s hair from her cheek and kissed it.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Wes said to the man. “Everyone says honey. I actually like maple syrup much better,” he proclaimed with a smile. He looked at Eden and smiled. “I now christen you Maple.”

  “Okay, Maple.”

  “Eden is in looove,” Allison teased.

  “Shut up, I am not!” Eden said sternly.

  But in truth, when Wes would tickle her back as she fell asleep or make her pasta with the best marinara sauce outside Naples, Eden couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to grow old with him.

  On deadline for his next project one freezing snowy Sunday, Wes finally put down his pen and paper to take a break. Dazzled by Eden’s sensuous dance moves around the apartment as music played, Wes took off his glasses and flopped down on the bed. He lay on his stomach, his pencil grazing the paper gently as he watched Eden in her camisole and panties as she spun around. He smiled as the graphite perfectly rendered what he had intended.

  “What is that you’re drawing?” she asked as his pencil dotted the pad. “A constellation of stars or something?”

  “Nope.” Wes smiled. “It’s all the beauty marks on your back.”

  He showed her the pad. The little brown spots were sweetly mapped with expert precision.

  “Shit, I have that many?” She lay down next to him.

  “Yes, you do. Serious mole cartography,” he teased.

  “Great,” she said sarcastically.

  He leaned over her and kissed each one down her whole back as she giggled. Her cheek lay happily on the feather-leaking pillow as she smiled.

  “You’re such a weirdo,” she teased. “I’m not a boobs or a leg man! Me? I’m a birthmark guy!”

  “I’m not some freak fetishist, I just like the whole package, that’s all,” he replied, laughing. “I love everything about you, don’t you know that?” His fingers walked up her camisole. “Every. Little. Last. Weirdly shaped mole.”

  Eden smiled, rolling over to face him.

  “How the hell did I get so lucky to find you?” she asked him, looking up at his face. “Do you know that I’ve never been able to sleep through the night, for as long as I can remember? I sleep like a baby here.”

  “I stuff my mattress with opium, didn’t I tell you?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Well, you’ve been a little nomad for a while. Maybe you sleep well here because it finally feels like home.”

  She reached up to his neck and pulled him down to kiss him as he ran his hand down her neck and shoulder, her arm, taking her fingers in his. She loved to fall asleep with him like pretzels, glued together and intertwined.

  “I’m so happy with you,” Wes said as they watched the shadows of their hands on the opposite white wall. “Is this the happiest you’ve ever been? ’Cause it is for me.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged playfully. She looked into his blue eyes and knew how much he loved her; he wanted to protect her, take care of her, and his every gaze, from the first in the morning to the last at night, was full of devotion.

  “You guess? You guess?” He jumped on top of her and tickled her. She giggled and guffawed until her high-pitched laughter turned to shrieks, begging for mercy.

  “Okay! Okay! I know it is!” she said, breathless.

  “You better!” he said, whacking her butt with the pillow.

  “I do, Maple. I love you. So much,” she said. “This has been the best nine months of my life.” She was home.

  Wes poured two last glasses of wine from dinner, which they sipped in the sheets.

  “Cheers,” he said, knowing in that moment, watching Eden sip her wine with rosy cheeks and bed head, that no human could ever be as happy as he was. “You know, Eden, this lousy, el cheapo Chateau Screwcap I bought at the corner bodega tastes like a sixty-seven Margaux,” he smiled, patting her.

  “You’ve had that?” Eden asked, playing with the zipper on his navy hooded sweatshirt.

  “Nope,” said Wes. “But I know it couldn’t be better than this.”

  He reached for her and kissed her clavicle and chest, returning to her face, which he drank in like more wine, kissing her deeply as she curled her arms around his neck, her fingers through his brown wavy hair. Their tongues, wet with grapes, melded in a heated embrace. Life couldn’t be sweeter.

  As Eden and Wes’s magical cocoon together approached the year mark, their happy rainbowed love life couldn’t have been more sublime.

  And then, little by little, reality started, ever so softly, to tip-toe into their rhapsodic nest.

  Zzzt! Zzzt. Zzzt. The light above flickered on and off and then went out.

  “Oh shit,” she said. “The electric bill.”

  “Whoops. I’ll take care of it tomorrow,” Wes said. “I worked some extra hours at the library and get my paycheck then.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” he said, kissing her forehead. But she knew he was strained as it was.

  “I’ll help out,” she offered. “I mean, I can work some more hours at the record store.” She was starting to hate her job at Tower. Especially when the Desperate Measures album went gold, thanks to their hit single, “Heart-Smasher,” based on her.

  “No, no, no—I’ve got it,” Wes comforted.

  They lay in the darkness in each other’s arms. Wes wanted to provide for her, take care of her, love her. And Eden loved Wes right back, so much that it hurt. But when ConEd switched off that current, she couldn’t help but be reminded of her life in Shickshinny, and her early days in New York in that overcrowded apartment. Her fears of being destitute started to kick in, and the girl who never cried got a lump in her throat. So she locked down, like when Batman whispers “shields” and a thick armored coating suddenly clamps down on the Batmobile. She had to secure herself, reinforce the casing she had her whole life and suit up, protecting the inner strength that got her on that bus out of Shickshinny in the first place. After all, it was all she had.

  6

  It takes a long time to grow young.

  —Pablo Picasso

  “Happy anniversary,” Wes said, smiling as he came in from the cold and sat across from Eden at a quirky new candlelit café near their apartment, an early harbinger of hipification to come. Wes hadn’t even realized it was the hot new joint when he had made the reservation. But its trend factor was not lost on his girlfriend, who loved the people-watching. Eden scanned the industrial-chic high-ceiled space, with rows of hanging cords, each with a vintage lightbulb with clear glass through which you could see the firefly filaments within. Friends air-kissed each other, attractive waiters brought fancy cocktails, and Eden drank it all in.

  Wes leaned over the table and kissed her cheek. “Can you believe it’s been a year?”

  “I know, it’s crazy! Wes, I love this place, great choice, it’s so cool in here, I’m obsessed,” she observed, reaching for the menu. “Yum, this looks so good, I’m starving!” Eden’s eyes widened as she beheld the prices on the right of the parchment paper, which was presented on rustic vintage clipboards. Shit, it was pricey. She looked at Wes, who was also noticing.

  “This place is kind of expensive,” Eden said.

  “Hey, it’s a special occasion, Maple, it’s worth the splurge.” Wes smiled warmly. Eden reached for his hand and held it.

  “Jesus, your hands are freezing, let me warm them up.” Wes took each of her pink hands and rubbed them quickly with his.

  “Thanks,” Eden said, feeling his warm hands comfort hers.

  “So how was your day?” Wes asked.

  “It was f
ine, Wes, but we really have to deal with the roach problem in the apartment.”

  “Oh no. You saw another one?”

  “It was literally bigger than a taxi.”

  “I’ll have Max send the exterminator again,” he promised, shaking his head. “Did you kill it?”

  “Hell, no! I sprinted out of there!”

  “I’ll get him when we get home, don’t worry,” he said, kissing her now-warmed hand. “I have so much work tonight anyway on my term project that I’ll be awake to defend you from crazy vehicle-sized insects.”

  “Thanks, Lancelot.” Eden smiled and sipped her water from a taupe-hued glass goblet. “Gosh, can you believe this place? Everyone is so . . . beautiful.”

  “That’s why they call them the Beautiful People.” Wes shrugged. He honestly hadn’t really noticed. But Eden spied the scene—the edgy and chic fashionistas, the cool young musicians carrying guitars, the offbeat vibe. It was everything she’d fantasized about New York all in one room. Of course she’d seen people like this all the time in the record store, just not all at once, with this lighting, at night, dressed up, being fabulous. Frequenting their hives was hardly within her financial reach.

  “I’m going to just run to the bathroom, quickly,” said Wes, popping up. Before he walked away he kissed her cheek once more.

  After a moment, the door of the restaurant burst open and in walked a noisy, colorful crew. A girl with spiky purple hair and a ton of piercings, two gorgeous male model types, a tall black woman with cheekbones in drastic angles that rivaled Mount Everest, and behind them all, Mr. Otto Clyde: the most famous living artist in New York, perhaps the world.